The Evelyn Dunbar Memorial Early Music Festival will take place at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music from October 23 to 26. This year’s event focuses on the works of Renaissance composers John Dowland and Orlando Gibbons, featuring a combination of lectures, concerts, master classes, and performances by both guest artists and students.
The festival program includes free and ticketed events across the university campus. Notable guests include Grammy Award-winning lutenist Paul O’Dette and tenor Aaron Sheehan. They will perform in a concert highlighting music by John Dowland and also lead a master class for Bienen School students.
A lecture by K. Dawn Grapes, an early music scholar from Colorado State University, is scheduled for Thursday, October 23 at Vail Chapel. Grapes will discuss John Dowland’s life and his notable composition “Lachrimae,” examining its cultural context in Elizabethan-Jacobean England and its influence over four centuries.
On Friday evening, the Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble will present “Time Stands Still” under the direction of Andrew Megill at Galvin Recital Hall. The program pairs works by Dowland and Gibbons with those by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Rebecca Clarke, C.H.H. Parry, Irving Fine, and features a world premiere from composer Stacy Garrop. There will be a preconcert talk by K. Dawn Grapes prior to this performance.
Saturday’s schedule includes an open dress rehearsal for “Voices and Viols” led by Stephen Alltop at Alice Millar Chapel in the morning. That evening sees O’Dette and Sheehan performing together as part of the Segovia Classical Guitar Series at Galvin Recital Hall.
On Sunday morning, O’Dette and Sheehan will provide coaching during a master class session for students in the Regenstein Master Class Room. Later that day, keyboard students taught by Stephen Alltop will give a mini-recital on the virginal—a Renaissance-era instrument—at Vail Chapel.
The festival concludes Sunday evening with “Hosanna to the Son of David: Music of John Dowland and Orlando Gibbons for Voices and Viols.” This performance at Alice Millar Chapel features sacred and secular pieces conducted by Stephen Alltop with contributions from both vocalists and instrumentalists.
All events are either free or have tickets available through concertsatbienen.org or directly from the Bienen School Ticket Office.